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January 5th, 2007, 11:20 GMT · By

Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Card Reader under Ubuntu Edgy

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I've noticed that many people (including myself) had some problems with the card reader from Texas Instruments that comes with their laptop; so after some documentation, I successfully got my card reader to work. I own an Acer TravelMate laptop and my card reader is a Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD). To know what kind of card reader you have, simply open a terminal and type the "lspci" command:

CODE
marius@marius-laptop:~$ lspci
.......
0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments Unknown device 8039
0a:09.2 Mass storage
controller: Texas Instruments Unknown device 803b

This is what "lspci" command outputs, on my Ubuntu Edgy, about the card reader. You should see these lines at the end of the "lspci" command. If you have the same result as I had, you can continue the rest of the guide in order to get your Texas Instruments card reader working.

To test your card reader, open a terminal and type the following commands:

CODE
sudo modprobe tifm_7xx1
sudo modprobe tifm_core
sudo modprobe tifm_sd

Now insert a card and it should auto mount. If all went well and you see a Nautilus window with the contents of your card, you can make this permanent by editing the /etc/modules file:

CODE
sudo gedit /etc/modules

and add the following lines:

CODE
tifm_7xx1
tifm_core
tifm_sd

save and close the file (remember to leave a blank line after the last row).

Now, every time you open your laptop and insert one of the supported multimedia cards, it will be automatically mounted; you'll immediately see an icon on your desktop (named mmcdisk in my case, as I have a microSD card) and a window will open with the contents of your card. Simple enough?

Editor's note: I have also tested this guide on openSuse 10.2 and Fedora Core 5, but unfortunately, it's not working as these distributions don't include the tifm (Texas Instruments Firmware) module into the default kernel.

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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Rambie on 01 Feb 2007, 23:34 UTC reply to this comment

Thanks for posting these instructions. I've been wondering how to enable my card-reader in Edgy.

Rambie


Comment #2 by: Spannerz on 28 Sep 2008, 07:57 UTC reply to this comment

Didn't work :( I suspect though that I don't have the TIFM texas instarments firmware? Installed? Kernel? MOD?


Comment #3 by: Spannerz on 28 Sep 2008, 07:59 UTC reply to this comment

Edit.
Sorry, using Hardy not edgy.


Comment #4 by: crOMagnon on 23 Jun 2011, 19:41 UTC reply to this comment

Works perfectly with my old Acer 3002WLMI with 3in1 card reader.
Lubuntu 10.04 ...4GB microSD + Adapter.

Thanks for guidance !

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